Interesting Facts About The Winter Olympics And The Americans Who Competed In Them Over The Years
The 2010 Winter Olympic games are being held in Vancouver, Canada. The Winter Olympics take place every 4 years and have been happening since the very first one occurred in 1924 in France. These games are much smaller than the Summer Olympics as there are not as many athletic events to compete in that require snow or ice. Since the first winter games started some events have been around such as various types of skating events, skiing races and bobsledding. The United States have hosted the winter games 4 times, more than any other country. Athletes train hard twelve months a year using Olympic plates and various conditioning techniques. A lot of athletes also are sponsored by corporations and have to promote them at events such as a treadmill sale. There are many moments things that happened with American athletes at the Winter Olympics and this article will discuss just some of those times.
The Olympics in Squaw Valley was the first to incorporate some of the new events for the Olympics. Because this area was not too developed, there was a great need to build, hotels, shops and even roads to get ready for the Olympics. This was also the first time that a special athlete’s village was built and the first time computers were used for the stats of all of the events. The beginning of agreat perfomance at the opening and closing ceremonies also happened at Squaw Valley with Walt Disney producing those events in 1960.
In 1976, the figure skater, Dorothy Hamill became called America’s sweetheart after winning the gold medal in the Olympics. Her trademark spin was trademarked as the Hamill Camel and a lot of young girls copied her short haircut and purchased the Dorothy Hamill doll. Lake Placid hosted the winter games for the second time in 1980 and it had some issues surrounding it with the threat of it being boycotted but it went on as hoped. Eric Heiden set the world and Olympic records in all five events in speed skating which made him popular around the world The other exciting game in 1980 was referred to as “The miracle on Ice” when the USA hockey team defeated the favored Soviet team.
The 1994 games in Lillehammer, Norway were complete with scandal for American figure skaters, Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. The most famous scandal was when the ex-husband of Tonya Harding assaulted Kerrigan by hitting her leg with a metal pipe trying to eliminate her from competing against Harding. Although injured, Kerrigan skated but Oksana Baiul of the Ukraine won the gold medal.
The 2010 Olympic games is to be held in Vancouver which will make it the largest metropolitan city to host the winter Olympics. The majority of the events will be around the city while the alpine skiing takes place at Whistler. Short track speed skater, Apollo Ohno will return for his third Olympics and try to beat Eric Heiden’s record of 5 medals won. Other Americans to look for are Lindsay Vonn in Alpine skiing and the two sport athlete, Shawn White, aka “The Flying Tomato” in snowboarding.
Connor Sullivan went to a fitness store for a www.csmfitness.com/Treadmills.html”>treadmill sale in order to purchase some gym equipment. He looked on the internet for www.csmfitness.com/Dumbbells.html”>Olympic plates to stock his home gym.
